Highways a big issue in Alabama governor's race

Two Republican candidates for governor came to town Wednesday and, wisely, they talked about highways. Any candidate for governor who hopes to win many votes in Madison County needs to talk about roads.

Roads are the Huntsville area's most pressing need with thousands of federal and contractor jobs and at least as many cars headed this way in the next couple of years.

Bill Johnson, who recently resigned as head of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs to run for governor, made Huntsville the first of four stops to announce his candidacy. He kicked off his campaign at Redstone Arsenal's Gate 9 to acknowledge "the tremendous impact of the arsenal, Research Park and all the defense and government jobs here, especially the new BRAC missions."

But Bradley Byrne, who has been a state school board member, a state senator and chancellor of the state's community colleges, may have startled some people when he talked about using the Alabama Trust Fund to repay bonds to finance road construction. State Sen. Lowell Barron of Fyffe, the Democrat Republicans love to loathe, brought up that idea this year.

The trust fund is a savings and investment account. It was established 28 years ago with revenue from oil and natural gas royalties and leases on state lands.

Over the years investments and capital gains from the fund have provided hundreds of millions of dollars for the state General Fund, helping cover expenses such as Medicaid, courts and prisons. Cities and counties also collect interest and capital gains from the fund.

Like other states, Alabama depends on revenues from state and federal gasoline taxes you pay at the pump to cover the cost of highway construction. But that money goes only so far.

Byrne told a meeting of the North Alabama Transportation Foundation that the Huntsville area's road needs top his highway priorities. He said he would use the trust fund money where it is needed for economic development instead of spreading it around to make lawmakers and others happy.

This spring, Barron proposed a bill that would have allowed the Legislature to withdraw $100 million a year for 10 years from the trust fund. Although he had some Republican support for the plan, he didn't get enough votes to pass it.

Democrats have promised to bring the bill back for the 2010 legislative session. Realistically, to get enough votes to pass the plan, sponsors of the legislation and the governor would have to agree to spread the money around, as Barron's plan would have.

Any change in how trust fund money is used would require voter approval of a constitutional amendment, and the governor cannot veto a bill setting up an amendment vote, nor does the governor necessarily have an official role in writing such a bill.

So, lawmakers could leave the governor out in the cold, although that might not be the wisest course. Governors are not powerless, after all.

At least two other Republican candidates for governor, Tim James and state Treasurer Kay Ivey, oppose tapping the trust fund. Ivey, for example, has said that would cut the money that would otherwise go to the General Fund and local governments.

There are also some financial realities.

Because of the recession and the state's falling revenues, voters in November agreed to allow the state to borrow $625 million from the fund to cover shortages in the education and General Fund budgets.

Revenue has been running nearly 15 percent below the same period a year ago for the state General Fund and nearly 10 percent below for the state school budget.

The money borrowed from the trust fund to help balance those budgets will have to be paid back over the next six years.

Perhaps the more conservative course for now is to wait until state tax collections and the economy show clear signs of recovery. But it is nice to think we can afford the things we need.